It’s a favorite lament of Texas Republicans: Washington Democrats are singling out the Lone Star State for mistreatment.

We’ve heard it about school funding, about highway funding, about environmental protection enforcement, about offshore drilling permits, and on and on.

Now this was a disaster: Former President Bush and Gov. Rick Perry visit Port Arthur after the devastation of Hurricane Rita.

Let’s add a new one to the list: Fire-fighting assistance.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the state’s GOP-dominated congressional delegation want Uncle Sam to pick up the tab for state and local efforts to fight thousands of wildfires that have scorched 2.2 million acres of Texas.

Federal officials say they’re on top of the situation and already have provided the state with some two dozen types of assistance.

Wednesday’s heated political rhetoric stoked two competing partisan narratives: Texas as a victim of a vindictive Democratic administration in Washington — or Rick Perry as Republican hypocrite who either bashes Washington over wasteful spending and infringement of states’ rights, or demands aid from the feds when it suits his political purposes.

“Instead of pointing fingers, the governor should work on restoring the funding Republicans are cutting from volunteer fire departments,” said Kirsten E. Gray, communications director of the Texas Democratic Party. “Blaming Washington for his lack of leadership is a sorry distraction from his own hypocrisy.”

However, Sen. John Cornyn, R-San Antonio, said the administration’s “flat out denial” of Perry’s aid request justifiably prompts speculation that politics may be in play.

“When you don’t have a good explanation for why things are being done, you speculate and wonder,” he said during a conference call with Texas reporters. “Texas has not been a place that has received equal and fair-handed treatment with other places around the country. It seems like a lot of politics are in the calculations. It seems like Texas has been treated negatively.”

Sen. John Cornyn (AFP photo)

Cornyn is particularly irked that Obama is planning political fund-raising stops in Texas next week, just days after rejecting the state’s disaster declaration request.

“It’s offensive that the president will make the time to use Texas as an ATM just days after he denied federal assistance for the thousands of wildfires that have ravaged Texas for months,” Cornyn spokesman Kevin McLaughlin told Texas on the Potomac. “I’m sure Texans in those areas affected by the fires would appreciate a Commander in Chief who is more concerned about their lives and livelihoods than he is with filling his campaign coffers.”

The bottom line is that both Washington and Austin are fighting budget shortfalls as fire-fighters attempt to contain the flames.

Texas officials, caught in a state budget squeeze, want the federal government to send more aid to defray their costs. Federal officials, facing a record deficit, are being careful in their use of “major disaster” declarations such as the one that followed the widespread devastation of Hurricane Ike or the recent Alabama tornadoes that killed hundreds of people.

Racusen said the administration believes “at this time” that the ongoing federal assistance to Texas is sufficient.

But Washington’s explanation doesn’t satisfy residents in the fire-ravaged Fort Davis area, where an estimated 300,000 acres have burned.

“It’s just as devastating as a flood in Missouri or a tornado in Alabama. Why do we not deserve it equally?” asked Fort Davis resident Patty Moreland, 61.

“The aid from being declared a national disaster will help people rebuild,” said Moreland, who knows many locals who have lost homes or ranchland to the fires. “It has affected everyone in town financially.”